Mr. Singleton turned round, watch in hand.
"You could catch the seven-two," he said politely.
Miss Greta, at the bottom of the staircase, faithfully flanked on one
side by Nan, by Madge on the other, paused to consider her friend's kind
suggestion.
"You could be ready inside an hour if we both helped,"--Nan enlisted
Madge as confidently as though there had never been a cloud between
them.
"You'll have _your_ things to pack, too," Miss Greta reminded Nan.
"Oh, I'll do that in ten minutes, after I've--after we've helped you."
Nan's hand on Miss Greta's arm urged her to the enterprise.
"A--just a moment," Napier interrupted, the disorder of the raided room
printed strong upon his inner vision. He saw it in pieces, like a
Futurist picture--a corner of gaping drawer showing a confusion of
papers, a glimpse of wardrobe-trunk dribbling flimsiness of lawn and
froth of lace; in the foreground fierce, violent, malevolent, the broken
metal shell of the false hat-box; Nan's eyes, no less clear, clearer
than all else, looking down upon the chaos and indignity of a ruined
life. She and the other "child," Madge, ought to be spared that
spectacle. Over the newel of the banister Napier spoke directly to Nan
for the first time since they had stumbled among rocks in the moonlight
three weeks ago, fleeing before the tide that raced up the shore, and
before the tide higher, more menacing, which had risen in their hearts.
"If you were to get a telegraph form--if we could write out a telegram
to send to Miss von Schwarzenberg's father--or--to--to--" he floundered.
"Yes," said Miss Greta. "To my father's agent, Schwartz."
"Anybody you like. We'll do our best"--he glanced at Singleton--"to get
a message through."
Instead of going to the drawing-room for a telegraph-form, Nan took a
scrap of paper out of her side pocket.
"Schwartz, _chez_ Kalisch," Napier heard the dictation begin, before
Madge created a diversion on her own account.
"Let me by, will you? I must go and tell Mother."
"Tell your mother what?" To Napier's relief, Miss Greta stopped her.
"That I'm going to London to see you off."
"No, dear." Greta caught at a tress of the girl's thick hair.
In the swift parley that followed, Madge, who had been strangely quiet
until now, flatly refused to be left behind. "I'd go," she declared with
sudden passion, "if I had to _walk_ to London!"
Miss Greta leaned heavily against the banister. What would you?--her
glance toward Singleton seemed to say. This is the devotion I am
accustomed to inspire. Then hurriedly to Madge:
"Listen, darling. You must be very good and helpful in these
last--whether they're minutes or whether they're hours--"
"_D-don't!_" A gulping sound, more angry than tender, was throttled in
Wildfire's throat.
"You'd better, first of all," advised Miss Greta, "go and telephone
Brewster to get the rooms ready."
Napier gaped at the effrontery of the suggestion.
"She means at Lowndes Square?" Nan put the hurried question with eyes of
sympathy on Madge, who was plainly not at the moment in any condition to
speak. "Couldn't I do it for you?"
The girl gave her old enemy a grateful glance and, instead of going
first to her mother, pushed past the group at the foot of the stairs and
bolted down the passage to Sir William's room.
"Lowndes Square?" Singleton repeated idly as he leaned against the door.
"Is that Sir William's London house?"
Miss Greta did not trouble to reply to the obvious. "Schwartz _chez_
Kalisch--you've got that?"
Nan nodded.
"It will be more convenient," Mr. Singleton interrupted again, "for you
to put up at a hotel."
Miss Greta appeared to consider this suggestion also to be unworthy of
notice. She stood wrinkling her brows over the form of the message.
"Let me," said Napier. He held out his hand for Nan's fragment of paper.
"Then you can get on with the telephoning."
Couldn't Nan trust herself to look into his face? Without raising her
eyes, Nan relinquished paper and pencil, and ran down to the
telephone-room.
"Returning home via Folkestone to-morrow." Miss Greta, still leaning
against the newel, dictated as imperturbably as though she had a week in
front of her for packing and preparation.
He hardly looked at the words he scribbled. The instant Nan disappeared
and Singleton had sauntered down the hall in her wake, he said in an
undertone, "You wouldn't like her to see your room. You'd better go up
and lock the door. Tell her to do her own packing first."
Miss Greta moved quietly up the stairs with Napier at her side. "They've
broken everything open?" she inquired, with contemptuous mouth.
"You know what they came for."
She seemed to consider that in its various bearings as she paused an
instant. "It isn't part of what they came for, I suppose, to rob me of
my savings?"
"They will tell you about that. But if you need anything--"
"I shall need everything! I have nothing fit to travel in." She spoke as
though, amid the wreck of life and reputation, her wardrobe was the most
important matter she had to think about.
"I should be glad," Napier answered, "if you would allow--you will find
others equally ready, I dare say; but anything I could--" She would
indignantly refuse, of course.
To his astonishment she stopped again, this time near the top landing,
to say in a rapid whisper: "I must pay some bills. I am afraid I owe
forty or fifty pounds."
Napier assured her that she would have a part at least of her money
returned, "in some form."
"I greatly doubt it. I've heard how they rob us."
"I beg your pardon, they do nothing of the kind. Not in _this_ country!"
Miss Greta tightened her lip as she went on toward her room. She looked
through plump Grindley as if he'd been thin air. Nan was flying up, two
steps at a time, with a sheaf of telegraph forms.
Not far behind, Wildfire came flaming. "Father wants to see you, Mr.
Gavan," she said.
Sir William was at the house telephone. "Yes, yes, my dear. No fuss, no
foolishness, no publicity. The very fact of our allowing Madge to see
her off--I thought it a horrible idea at first, but don't you see the
value of it? Oh, here's Gavan. I'll come to you in a minute."
He hung up the receiver. "Look here, Gavan, the really important thing
is that the silly newspapers shouldn't get hold of this. We are sending
Madge up with an old servant to see the woman off. It will quiet any
misgivings in the child's mind, a thing my wife is painfully exercised
about. There's no doubt it would be a dreadful shock to Meggy; and
besides, the great thing is, it will choke off the suspicions of any
nosing, ferreting little penny-a-liner. At least, it would if--my dear
boy, there isn't any one else I would ask such a thing of, but do you
think you could--would you--"
* * * * *
The strangeness of that leave-taking!
Miss Greta was the first to come down, calm, carefully dressed in
_demi-deuil_, as one too fearful of the death of her father to have
heart for her usual pinks and apple-greens, yet showing the front
befitting the daughter of a soldier. She seemed not to notice Grindley
coming slowly down behind her, nor Singleton and Napier talking
together on the steps. She occupied herself with her gloves as she
waited till the men-servants passed her on their way back after hoisting
a wardrobe-trunk and a hat-box on top of the service-motor.
"That American box, I am afraid it was very heavy." Miss Greta smiled as
she dispensed her _douceurs_ with the demeanor Napier could have sworn
Miss Greta herself took to be suitable to the daughter of a German
officer. It was, at all events, the demeanor popularly supposed to be
the hallmark of the duchess.
"I hope," she said, advancing to the door and speaking to Singleton, "I
hope you won't mind waiting a moment for Miss McIntyre. Sir William
insists on sending his daughter along to look after me."
"Sir William should have more faith in us," returned Singleton, with his
agreeable smile. "We have already telegraphed to Cannon Street."
"_Cannon Street!_" She supported herself an instant against the jamb of
the door. And then she looked back to see that the butler was out of
earshot. "Sir William can't know we are going to--Cannon Street, or he
wouldn't be allowing Madge--" How well she knew one aspect of London!
"I don't mean the police station," replied Singleton.
"What _do_ you mean?" she asked, indignant at the trick.
"The hotel."
She turned another look across her shoulder. The corridor was empty.
"You aren't meaning I am not to leave the hotel?"
"You won't need to leave the hotel, not till about five o'clock
to-morrow afternoon."
"Why didn't you say that in time to prevent my friends here from taking
all the trouble to order my room to be ready for me at their house in
town?"
Mr. Singleton did not stop to point out that the order had been Miss
Greta's own and that he had politely opposed it. "I am sure you must
appreciate that your preference for the convenience of a hotel will come
better from you."
"There are things I _must_ go out for."
"Oh?" he looked at her.
"Shopping. I have _nothing_ I can travel in."
Singleton caught Napier's eye, and both glanced at Behemoth disappearing
down the drive on top of the service-motor. Really, these Germans! This
coolly dictatorial woman knew as well as Singleton did that in the bag
at his feet was evidence sufficient to imprison her for life. She also
knew her luck in having been in the service of a man whom it was
undesirable to involve in a scandal. Nan and Madge came running down,
while Singleton, with his unfaltering politeness, was still trying to
think of some way in which to meet Miss Greta's objection. "You have so
many devoted friends," he suggested, "perhaps some one could do these
commissions for you."
"No."
"Then I am afraid you will have to postpone your shopping till you reach
home."
"_I_ could do your shopping," Madge volunteered.
"You see!" Singleton went down the steps and turned to hand the ladies
in.
Napier was sure that Miss Greta was as aware as he was of the forlorn,
frightened little face peering out from the drawn blind in Lady
McIntyre's room. But the woman, settling herself calmly in the car, gave
no sign; at least not till Madge, on a note of sympathy that struck
Napier as curious coming from that source, said with an upward glance,
"Mother!" And when Greta still affected to be oblivious, the girl said
peremptorily, "Look!"
"Where? Oh!" Greta raised her face. She didn't bow; merely smiled. It
was one of the saddest smiles possible to see. "Your poor mother had one
of her prostrating headaches to-day. I am sorry." And then the car
rolled away, bearing a haunting memory of that face at the window.
If Nan's excitement at the thought of nearing London helped the party
over some difficult moments, it created others.
"You see, I went straight from the docks in Liverpool to Scotland, and
from Scotland to Lamborough. This is the first time in all my life--oh,
what's that?" She stared out of the window. Through a gap in the huddle
of suburban dwellings and factories, looming dark against the deep-blue
dusk of evening, a blade of pallid light pointed upward to something
invisible in the sky. "What is that?" the overseas voice asked,
awestruck. While she spoke, the giant shaft moved a little and then
stopped. It seemed, human-wise, to reconsider. Another bolder shaft shot
up beyond it, seeming to say: "This way! Have at them, brother!" The
doubtful one quivered, and flashed upward, only to be hidden as the
train rushed on into the intervening immensity which was London.
"The new searchlights," Madge remarked in a dry tone. "Rum if we should
come in for a Zeppelin raid!"
"How dim it is in London!" Nan said, as she stepped out of the railway
carriage. "There must be a fog."
"No. They keep the lights low these days."
On the opposite side of the platform another train, a very long one, was
discharging its passengers. Most of these people, with untidy hair and
sleep-defrauded eyes, were dressed in stained and tumbled odds and ends.
Some were in working-clothes; women in great aprons, many carrying
babies; little children holding to their skirts; and nearly every soul
in the motley company, even the children, had one or more bundles, bags,
or boxes in their hands. They were like people who had been waked
suddenly out of a nightmare and told to run for the train. They seemed
not to see the prosaic sights of the platform. The look of nightmare was
still in their eyes. A middle-aged woman and an old man stood clinging
together. The saddest immigrant ever landed in the New World had not
shown a face like these.
"Where do they come from?" Nan was looking nearly as bewildered as the
foreign-speaking horde.
"They come from Belgium," Napier said.
Singleton was waiting to hand Nan and Miss Greta into his cab.
"_Non! non!_" a high, agitated voice said in passing, "_les Allemands
n'ont pas depasse la ligne Ostende-Menin!_"
Out in the street newsboys were crying an extra: "Great battle raging!
_Arrival of Canadian Troops!_"